Darren Hughes has parliamentary experience – although not from the UK. He served as a Labour MP in the New Zealand parliament between 2002 and 2011, and has been the Electoral Reform Society’s Deputy Chief Executive since 2014.

“The General Election in June saw millions of people feel forced to vote tactically to keep out a ‘lesser evil’ – rather than opt for who they really support. One in five – double the proportion of 2015 – held their nose at the ballot box and tried to second guess other voters.”

One of the central aims of the Electoral Reform Society is to change the UK's first-past-the-post voting system to a more representative one.

It is worth noting that following a series of referendums, New Zealand’s voting system switched from first-past-the-post to the mixed-member-proportional system (MMP) in the 1996 election. MMP is similar to the additional member system (AMS), which is used to elect MSPs to the Scottish parliament and AMs to the Welsh and London Assemblies.

Richard Wood

Richard Wood is a Masters student in Political Research at the University of Aberdeen and is Head of Media for campaign-group TalkPolitics. Other than politics, he is passionate about travel, running, and writing, as well as all things space-related.